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A little sincerity is a dangerous thing.
The ladybug continued to trek across the desk and her eyes continued to follow it. A dozen little black spots and an orange shell. Emery always loved ladybugs - they reminded her of home, especially the fall. Once, when she had been dropped off from school by the bus, it had seemed like it was raining the little bugs. She had tried to catch them, but hadn’t quite managed it before her muma brought her inside the house.
She edged a little closer, just a little more out of her seat, and hunched over. Her fingers held lightly onto the lip of the desk and the bridge of her nose pressed into it. The only thing visible where her eyes. She hadn’t even noticed that there was someone else beside her - until she saw, from the corner of her eye, movement. She jerked up. “No!” It was a little too loud; loud enough for those who had (by some miracle) nearest to them turned their heads and for somewhere to her left, someone jerked awake and kicked the chair in front of them. But not loud enough to disturb the still lecturing ghost. Emery, wide-eyed, clapped a hand over her mouth and flushed.
When she heard the shifting of people turning in their chairs, she slowly lowered her hand to answer Bran. They shared a house, and obviously, they shared a year. “No, it’th not..well, I wath jutht watching it and…” Nibbling down on her lip, she saw he had just picked it up. She swore it seemed that he had intended to squish the poor little ladybug.
“I’m thorry,” Averting her eyes, she cupped her hands under his. If Emery would find something to hold the little buggie, she would keep it for the rest of class then release it. They had Herbology next, if she remembered right (the schedule was in her book, on the floor) so a little detour shouldn’t take that much time. “Thank you.”
He paused, looking around to the other students who had heard her. “It’s alright, it just startled me s’all.” He shrugged at her reaction, showing clearly that he had meant to squish the thing, but…”Ma says they bring luck, I could hardly squish it after that.” He smiled at the girl, dropping the ladybug carefully into her palms.
Once the ladybug was out of his possession he fashioned a smile at her again, nodding, “Not a problem. Ladybugs are quite amazing, they have all those little dots on them.” He scrunched up his face at the insect now in Emery’s palm. “Have you ever seen the ladybugs that are black with red or orange dots? I’ve heard those were poisonous, but I don’t actually know.” He shrugged, “What are you going to do with it? Is it to be your pet?”
It was okay - and Emery nodded. Well, she nodded because it was all right, not because she knew the ladybug now being deposited into her hands by Bran supposedly brought luck. “I never heard of that before,” Was that just a wizard thing? She peered into her hands at the bug, watching it crawl over her palm. Being raised in an entirely non-magical family did have it’s drawbacks, but it wasn’t something she could fault her family for. It was all just odd, the world was just odd and odd things happened. And some people believed odd things.
She doubted it was going to bring any sort of luck - luck was only in charms and things you could keep. You couldn’t keep a ladybug because…well, what did they even eat? Leaves, like caterpillars? It couldn’t eat other bugs, because it was just so teeny tiny. She returned his smile but a small frown puckered her forehead. “Really?” Poisonous ladybugs? Just to double check, she looked down at the insect. No, it looked like it was just orange-and-black, not black-and-orange. “But how could they be…” She stopped and frowned, sounding the word out carefully in her head. Po-is-on-ous. And she cringed. No, she was going to sound dumb if she tried to say it, what’s…what’s another word for poisonous? It didn’t have venom, that was snakes. Uhh..she couldn’t think of it and she looked down and to the side. “Poithonouth? How would that work?”
“I’m going to let it go, outthide.” Where it would be out of harm’s way and far from the danger of being squished. “Don’t you think it’th lonely?” Maybe it was missing it’s family.
His least favourite class, History of Magic wasn’t his least favourite without reason. The room was stuffy, not that he cared too much, but it always was, and the class was taught by a dead person. Sometimes magic was confusing, brilliant, but downright scary. Not to mention he constantly got names and dates confused, 1983 turned into 1893 to 1398 and the possibilities were hardly endless, but it was nearly impossible for him to answer questions correctly.
There was a system, and it worked fairly well until the drone of Professor Binns’ voice overtook him and his eyelids felt heavy. He remembered his mother talking about Binns’ and even thought his grandfather Lorcan had mentioned him once or twice. He hardly fought the urge to sleep, and soon he was dreaming. About….home, of course, climbing the castle to the amusement of his grandfather and the absolute fear of his mother. Not that her brothers hadn’t climbed up here, and not that she herself had never, it was a family thing, climbing atop the castle, seeing the fields stretched out before them. Usually, he found his uncle Ronan up here. He was the quietest of all his uncles, and stayed separated from the rest, though he told fantastic stories to Brandon, about birds and creatures in the dark that would come up from behind and eat you as soon as look at you.
He felt something next to him, and a prickling on his hand, his eyes opened and he saw an insect working it’s way over his hand. He moved to strike it, but saw then it was a ladybug. Ladybugs were lucky, his mother had said, if one had landed on you, but that wasn’t all. Someone was precariously leaning towards him. He looked at Emery, a girl in his year and house with brows furrowed. “Is this yours?” He raised his hand to get a better look at the ladybug who probably was a male. Bran wondered why they called them all ladybugs and not gentlemanbug….though perhaps that was too long a name. “Here.” He held out his hand, presenting the ladybug to her.
The ladybug continued to trek across the desk and her eyes continued to follow it. A dozen little black spots and an orange shell. Emery always loved ladybugs - they reminded her of home, especially the fall. Once, when she had been dropped off from school by the bus, it had seemed like it was raining the little bugs. She had tried to catch them, but hadn’t quite managed it before her muma brought her inside the house.
She edged a little closer, just a little more out of her seat, and hunched over. Her fingers held lightly onto the lip of the desk and the bridge of her nose pressed into it. The only thing visible where her eyes. She hadn’t even noticed that there was someone else beside her - until she saw, from the corner of her eye, movement. She jerked up. “No!” It was a little too loud; loud enough for those who had (by some miracle) nearest to them turned their heads and for somewhere to her left, someone jerked awake and kicked the chair in front of them. But not loud enough to disturb the still lecturing ghost. Emery, wide-eyed, clapped a hand over her mouth and flushed.
When she heard the shifting of people turning in their chairs, she slowly lowered her hand to answer Bran. They shared a house, and obviously, they shared a year. “No, it’th not..well, I wath jutht watching it and…” Nibbling down on her lip, she saw he had just picked it up. She swore it seemed that he had intended to squish the poor little ladybug.
“I’m thorry,” Averting her eyes, she cupped her hands under his. If Emery would find something to hold the little buggie, she would keep it for the rest of class then release it. They had Herbology next, if she remembered right (the schedule was in her book, on the floor) so a little detour shouldn’t take that much time. “Thank you.”
Being bundled up in a room was the last thing any child wanted - being in the room for the sore purpose of listening to what sounded like sandpaper on a brick wall was the last thing any one, regardless of age, wanted. But Binns was talking and her fellows were drifting off. But Emery made the effort to remain awake. Yesterday, she’d even tried clipping her eyelids open. It resulted in a painful, not-quite-a-bruise-but-very-bright spot on her forehead and it hurt very much like a bruise.
It was amazing! How could there be so much history for everything, yet it so long gone unnoticed? It was really, really amazing but very, very frightening at the same time. How had they’d managed to keep it all under wraps? No doubt the ghostly Professor had offered an explanation - but some point, between the Salem Witch Trials and Wah-something the Weird, her mind had drifted off.
Emery’s chin ended up propped up on her desk, right on the edge of it, and her eyes went from the pale specter to a small ladybug that was making it’s way across her desktop. Her eyes followed the little insect, neatly stacking away everything that was in it’s path. Books she piled on the floor next to her, next she put her papers and quills and ink until her desk was entirely cleared, everything piled haphazardly on the floor because she had yet to take her eyes away from the ladybug.
Eventually, it crossed onto the desktop next to hers and she inched sideways out of her chair to follow it. Emery picked her head up just to rest her chin on her palm and practically moved herself into the desk space next to her.
